


Excavations and Discoveries

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Category: The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Series
Genre: Egypt, Exploration, F/M, Pre-The Mummy Returns, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-02 17:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21165092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: Evy coughed, then pushed herself up dizzily from the smooth stone floor that had broken her fall, trying to clear the rough rasp of sand from her throat.   The air was hot and close, like the inside of an oven, and she could barely see the hand in front of her face....





	Excavations and Discoveries

**Author's Note:**

  * For [etoilecourageuse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilecourageuse/gifts).

Evy coughed, then pushed herself up dizzily from the smooth stone floor that had broken her fall, trying to clear the rough rasp of sand from her throat. The air was hot and close, like the inside of an oven, and she could barely see the hand in front of her face, much less the dimensions of the chamber she had tumbled into. At a guess, it was the great hall of some long-forgotten temple; she had assumed as much from the size of the upper pylons exposed by a recent sandstorm, but she had only barely begun to attempt to dig down to the gateway between them when something inside must have given way, and she had been sucked into the river of sand as it had rushed to fill the empty space inside.

Millennia ago, the temple buried here had no doubt sat flat and exposed not far from the banks of the Nile; but time, wind, and the various passages of conquering armies had long since resulted in its abandonment to the desert. If not for the recent storm, it might yet lie unnamed and unknown, waiting for future generations of archaeologists; but chance had brought it to her attention as she had embarked upon another excavation, and she had not been able to resist the urge to explore.

Rick had argued for sending word to Ardeth's people, to discover if it might be among the cursed places of Egypt the Medjai were assigned to protect; they had yet to receive word back. However, neither its location nor the outward dimensions she had been able to estimate-- with the assistance of several workmen and a small forest of shovels-- were at all familiar to her from the extant literature, and it had seemed unlikely that a site of any especial significance should have been so entirely forgotten by time. No, she had expected no treasure here, nor curses, nor even sculptures or murals of particular beauty; nothing that would have caught her brother's eye, for example. But even a heap of tax records written on potsherds, left behind as worthless debris by ancient looters, would have been worth the visit to her.

She had rather counted on more fully clearing the gateway first, however. Evy coughed again, then felt at her tool belt for her electric torch, and hissed as her exploring fingertips encountered broken glass.

"Evy!" She could hear a voice calling to her, faint and far away; she tottered slightly on her feet as she got her bearings, then turned toward the one source of light in her vicinity. Far up and behind her-- at a distance at least twice her height from the ground, and more than twice that from where she stood-- a semicircle of brightness stood out: the gap between the inrushing sand and the roof of the hall, where the ground had given from under her feet and carried her inward. All else was dim brown shadow.

"Rick!" she called back. "I'm down here!"

"Evy?!" The light was briefly blocked by the silhouette of a man's head; then her husband gave a sigh of relief. "Evy, are you all right?"

"I'm fine! Well, _mostly_," she called back.

"Oh, thank God." The silhouette slumped; then it straightened again, and extended an arm toward her like a hieroglyphic figure composed of light and shade. "Wait right there! I'm getting a rope, then I'm coming in after you."

"Wait!" she tried to call back, the word breaking on another cough. The air was stale and heavy with the weight of uncounted years, last exhaled by men and women who had inhabited a world far different from her own. "Throw me down your torch!"

But the silhouette had already disappeared; Evy swore under her breath, then patted at her tool belt again until she came up with a lighter. She'd felt the shape of the shovel under her, laying a line of bruising along her ribs, when she sat up; she bent carefully to feel for it at her feet, then removed her scarf, wrapped it around the shaft of the shovel, and carefully set it alight.

In the dimness, she'd had to manoeuvre mostly by feel; she hissed, then tucked the lighter away and sucked at her burnt thumb as she raised the improvised torch with her other hand. It gave off just enough light to see the slope of the sand behind her, marked by a wavy track from her tumble, and discern the distance to the nearest wall; she glanced toward the entrance again, still showing only empty sky, then back toward the shadowy stone. That should qualify as 'right there' enough for any _sensible_ person, shouldn't it? She was already down there; she might as well see what she'd found.

Distant, muted cursing conveyed the progress-- or lack thereof-- of her rescue party. Evy shook her head, then made up her mind, and took careful steps toward the wall. She sounded out each step with her toes before setting her full weight upon it; she had had enough encounters with unexpected openings for _one_ lifetime, thank you very much. The floor remained solid, however, and the wall presented no unforeseen hazards as she approached it. No scarabs set into the carvings in imitation of blue gold, nor faint cracks to hint at a secret passage, nor heavily festooned cobwebs in which venomous arachnids might lie in wait. Only a suggestion of hieroglyphics, still carrying traces of the paint that had been laid down by the ancient builders--

Abruptly, before she could discern more than a single cartouche-- the name of Ramesses II, prominently displayed-- a sudden hot rush of wind disturbed the chamber; the remnants of the scarf abruptly detached from the shovel and drifted in dying embers to the floor, leaving her without light once more. A heavy thumping sound, followed by a vast dry hissing like a thousand angry snakes, disturbed the air behind her, and she gasped, turning around and flattening herself to the wall in a rush of adrenaline.

_Something_ had happened. Had there been an attack? Was the temple cursed after all? The gap of light at the entrance was notably larger, but strangely obscured, somehow.

"Rick!" she yelled, calling her husband's name as loudly as she could. Her heart thudded in her chest as she ran through all the possibilities. After everything they had survived when they first met, surely such a comparatively mundane exploration would not be the occasion to break them apart!

Coughing, considerably nearer than she had expected, sent her flinching back against the wall again; she turned her eyes vainly toward its source, trying to discern one dim shadowy shape from another in the minutely increased light, and felt at her belt again for the broken electric torch. In the absence of anything better, that might do--

"Oops?" the cougher said, sheepishly; and Evy caught her breath in surprise, dropping the torch.

"What did you _do_?" she exclaimed, exasperated, and instantly dropped to her knees to more swiftly move across the sand-strewn stone.

"Well, you know that, uh, excavation equipment I brought…." her husband began.

"Well, thank goodness I _wasn't_ standing right there anymore," she replied tartly, hands shaking slightly as she bumped into him in the dark. She quickly felt over the beloved form, the familiar features, searching for any sign of injury; then punched him lightly in the shoulder. "You and your dynamite. What did you _think_ was going to happen? What if you'd collapsed the roof?"

"I didn't put it against any of the walls; I only meant to clear the sand," he replied, capturing her hands in his own. So close, she could make out his features and the blue of his eyes, midnight-dark in the dimness, fixed upon her own face; and within them, she could see a fading panic that matched her own. "I was having trouble securing the rope; and I just wanted to get to you, before you stumbled over another sarcophagus or something."

"I do generally know what I'm doing, you know, despite all appearances to the contrary," she murmured back, smiling faintly at him.

"Still. This is the last time you explore _any_ temple without me, if I can help it. I'm not going to stop you from going wherever you want; but wherever you go, I'm going to be there, right at your side."

She raised one sandy hand to his cheek, and kissed him until the earnest, determined expression faded in favour of something a little more appropriate to a darkened chamber.

Then she pulled back, and glanced back up at the entrance. "Why were you having trouble with the rope? Where are the workmen?"

"Well, when you disappeared like that, and one of them started muttering about curses…."

She sighed, then pushed back to her feet. "I don't suppose you have another electric torch with you, either?"

"Ummm….."

Evy laughed softly, then shook her head. "I suppose we're retracing our steps the hard way, then. What sort of adventurer are you, anyway?"

"Clearly, one unprepared for the challenges of life with a librarian," he replied, cheekily.

She kissed that expression off his face, too, then approached the sloping sand and began the long slog back up, hand in hand. Whatever this temple turned out to be in the end, unimportant or not, she knew she'd remember this moment for the rest of her life: both for its terrors and its joys, like so much else since she'd met Rick O'Connell.

Moving ever forward, one discovery at a time.


End file.
